What’s new

August 2016 update

Another 75 items have been added to the Virtual Library, bringing the total number of items to over 500, representing over 150 languages ... read more

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Update 2024

This site is no longer current and is not being updated. Since 2016, happily, the number of online sources of knowledge about Australian Indigenous languages exploded in number and diversity of sources, especially from Indigenous organisations and individuals. As a result, it became impossible to keep ALoA up to date. It is no longer a key resource.

As the main web portal for Australian Aboriginal languages on the web (part of Tim Berners-Lee’s official W3C Virtual Library (now defunct at https://www.vlib.org/ - see its history) this site provided summaries, guidance and links to quality resources on Aboriginal languages, especially those produced from communities and by community members. It was listed in most of the major international libraries and other institutions as a key site for Australian languages, and attracted over 500,000 hits a year.

Approximately half of the linked sites still exist and the site’s back-end database remains valuable because it contains data which tracks 20 years of the emergence, expansion and changes in the online presence of Australian First Nations languages from the birth of the web.

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RESULTS: ONE ITEM FOR FOR LANGUAGE Wemba Wemba

Wemba Wemba [xww]
Source: Australian National Dictionary Centre/Barry Blake/Luise Hercus
Moomba is the name of a carnival held annually in Melbourne. While its folk etymology is "Let's get together and have fun", in fact 'moom' (mum) in some Victorian Aboriginal languages (such as Wemba Wemba) means 'buttocks' or 'anus', and 'ba' is a suffix meaning 'at' or 'in'.

The link is to the page for M; scroll down to find 'Moomba'.

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